HARKEN to the blust of trumpets! Gather, ye peasants, at the market cross. Jesters, cease your pranks. Carousers, unhand those wenches and abandon your quarts of ale. Gather now, for Prince Charles is issuing a proclamation.
"Oh, ruddy Nora," I hear you complain. "What's he on about now?" He – if I'm allowed to call him that – has issued a stark warning. "Stark warning, eh? Sounds alarming," you say, correctly. The Prince warns that genetically modified crops are bringin
g us to the brink – yea, even the very brink – of environmental disaster.
I see you are streaming for the exits. I know: heard it all before. Interfering with Mother Nature, yada-yada. This column has always supported GM. It is not a subject I have researched deeply, nor indeed at all, and I fear you'll find little traces of logic here. I'm far too busy for that sort of thing. But put it this way: GM has to be done. We cannot unlock the genetic secrets of the universe and then not fiddle with them.
Prince Charles himself is a product of genetic fiddling. Throughout centuries, the judicious grafting of DNA has led to the monstrous carbuncle that stands before us today with his hand in his double-breasted jacket. You say: "I admire his jackets, but he is not a man of his word." I know where you're coming from. In 2002, PC said he'd be as well spending the rest of his time skiing abroad if Labour banned hunting. And, lo, the mangling of Mother Nature's minions for pleasure was outlawed, and still the big-lugged poltroon remains, neither abroad nor skiing.
But what is his beef with GM? He says it is the industrialisation of farming, but farming was always the industrialisation of the countryside. He says it's unsafe and too clever by half. Listen to him: "I will tell you this, boyo. If they think it's going to work because they are going to have, like, one form of clever genetic engineering after another, then count me out, ken?"
Yesterday, top politicians unfamiliar to the populace turned on the Prince. Phil Willis (Lib Dem) hollered: "His willingness to condemn millions of people to starvation in areas like sub-Saharan Africa is absolutely bewildering." And Des Turner (Lab) frothed: "It's an entirely Luddite attitude."
But surely our own Ned Lug would be entitled to ask: "What has sub-Saharan Africa ever done for me?" And at least the prince uses English well, complaining that GM would lead to "dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness". That's bleedin' poetry that is. He also points out that GM will be run by and for gigantic corporations, who'll stomp on little farmers like some Jolly GM Giant.
Hmm. Putting on my reporter's hat and raincoat, I decided to investigate this further. So, taking off my hat and raincoat, I put "GM crops" into the Google internet search engine. What came up astounded me. Evil boffins have been adding fish genes to tomatoes. Soya has been altered so it can thrive while weedkillers destroy other plants. Spraying for GM oilseed rape and beet kills weed seeds and beetles, which causes skylarks to starve.
I'm not having this! Here's my several-point plan to avert environmental disaster: (1) All GM companies to be nationalised and run by citizens' committees, chaired by members of the Royal Family. (2) All tomatoes that taste of fish to be sent to sub-Saharan Africa, where they're less picky about that sort of thing. (3) All skylarks to be rounded up and force-fed bread, or whatever it is they eat. (4) Prince Charles to be knighted.
The Prince is often mocked for speaking out on subjects about which he knows nothing. But, nothing daunted, he speaks for many of us who are also ignorant and just want the best for the skylarks. God bless you, Mr Windsor-Schleswig-Holstein-Question. And they say there is no place for the monarchy in our increasingly modern world.
Traditional tale of inedible fruitTHE nation is going bananas for gooseberries. Top fruitologists say this year's sunny summer in Scotland – eh? – has led to a bumper crop, and that shoppers are queuing round the block for the largely inedible delicacy. It's fine to see a resurgence in traditional fruits.
Gooseberries were first grown in Britain in the 16th century when they were used medicinally. Sufferers of syphilis put one berry under each armpit and read the Bible every hour. However, an early study by Sussex University's Syphilis Lab concluded: "All ye subjects be deid."
Confusion wins over bottle in attempts to go greenRECYCLING is now so complicated it puts as much strain on the brainlobes as Sudoku which, as I understand it, is some kind of puzzle involving dice and string. Top-style boffins at Sussex University's Mind Lab gave citizens 50 objects of rubbish and told them to place them in the appropriate box. The strain soon told. One subject ran from the lab, screaming: "Is card the same as cardboard? When is a bottle not a bottle? Can I can this can? Aargh!"
It's typical of you humans that you have to complicate the slightest thing. Add in the moral blackmail that puts so many citizens off green issues, and the conditions are ripe for a revolution or limited leafleting campaign. During the research, many volunteers forgot – or were too dim – to remove the tops from bottles. Others didn't know the address-windows from business envelopes had to be taken off before recycling. I didn't know that either, and I've got two 'O' levels.
Researchers found the average family spends a total of one week a year sorting, preparing and rinsing waste, before taking it into the countryside and slinging it behind a hedge. If they'd worked that much, they'd have earned another £500, which they could have put towards a better life in another country.
Cooncils, typically, have approached the recycling challenge in an authoritarian manner. Every bin in the country now contains a secret camera, and citizens are arrested in the middle of the night for failing to distinguish between card and cardboard. Frightened, I wrote to several MPs, keeping my letters brief, as I know they're busy people: "Dear Sir or Ms, I want to know what to do with my toilet roll. Yours sincerely, Upright O'Citizen." None has replied. While I wait, I've decided to stop recycling and take up Sudoku instead. Where does the string go again?
The full article contains 1097 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
